The 2.75-inch guided rocket, known as Bigung in Korea, blast off from a launch vehicle (Courtesy of the Defense Acquisition Program Administration)
LIG Nex1 Co., a South Korean defense company, said on Monday its Poniard guided rocket has passed the final performance test of the US Foreign Comparative Testing (FCT) conducted by the US Department of Defense, raising the chances for its entrance into the US guided weapons market.
The 2.75-inch guided rocket system, “Bigung,” hit all six targets in the test undertaken in the waters off Hawaii in a real-world scenario on Friday.
LIG Nex1 has developed the guided rocket that can be mounted on a small unmanned surface vehicle with its own technology mainly for exports. It is South Korea’s first guided rocket system that cleared the US performance test.
The FCT program evaluates advanced military technologies developed by US allies with an aim to integrate them into the nation’s military development and acquisition projects.
Bigung was developed as a weapons system to be mounted on a vehicle to precisely attack North Korea’s air flotation craft. It was already deployed at the front line on the Korean Peninsula in 2016 for the South Korean Marine Corps.
In 2019, it was designated as a candidate weapon system for the FCT program. Installed on an unmanned surface vehicle developed by Textron Inc., a US aircraft company, the guided rocket has recorded a hit rate without a single error until the final test last week, said LIG Nex1.
Bigung, a Poniard guided rocket developed by LIG Nex1 (Courtesy of LIG Nex1)
LIG Nex1 expects the successful completion of the final performance test would open door the exports of the rocket system, adopted only by the Korean Armed Force.
But it may take some time to secure actual export orders as it needs to address US Navy’s specific requirements and budget allocation, in addition to contracts verification.
Meanwhile, it is in advanced talks with a Middle East country to develop a variant of medium-sized reconnaissance unmanned surface vehicle, Haegeom, tailored to the country. The vehicle developed by LIG Nex1 can carry various weapons systems, including Bigung.
By Kyung-Kyu Kim
khk@hankyung.com
Yeonhee Kim edited this article
